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...or not.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

"Clerks 3" and Why I'm glad Kevin Smith is Saying So Long

Kevin Smith recently announced that he will be writing and directing "Clerks 3".

That sound you just heard was me blowing my load in my pants.

Kevin Smith also announced that this will be his final film as a director.

That other sound you just heard is me laughing my ass off.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat now: as a teenager, I fucking loved everything Kevin Smith. The original "Clerks" was my introduction to the Askew-niverse, followed by his beloved films "Mallrats", "Chasing Amy", "Dogma", and "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back". Some I liked more than others, but all in all I was mad about anything Smith had done and would go on to do. Hell, I even loved the shit out of the "Clerks" animated series. You know, all six episodes of it. Regardless, even though "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" would supposedly be the end of Smith's stoner/New Jersey-centric flicks, I looked forward to see what he would come up with next.

Then we got "Jersey Girl".

Yeah, things kind of went downhill from there. Granted he redeemed himself to me with "Clerks II", a film that helped get me through one of the roughest periods of my life, it still didn't have that same feel to it that his previous films had on me. I couldn't figure out why this was exactly, and then when "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" came out, I realized just why all this was: I was getting older and less angsty in life, and what Smith was selling just didn't hit me the same way it used to.

After that realization, it got to the point that almost anything I saw Smith appear on just annoyed the shit out of me anymore. His interviews, his stand-up specials (The "An Evening with Kevin Smith" DVDs, which started out charming and then just got boring and way too overlong), and his podcasts just started boring the ever-loving shit out of me. That, and the products he was producing at the time were just plain shit. "Cop Out" was godawful, and have you ever seen "Comic Book Men"? Here's a piece of advice...don't.

All that shit-talking aside, I have to admit that I am absolutely dying to see "Clerks 3" become a reality. Why? Because I love Dante and Randal and even if it's a movie with just those two talking about ANYTHING I will gladly watch it. That, and it makes me happy that this will be Smith's final film. Now do I honestly believe that this will be Smith's last hurrah behind the camera? Fuck no. Remember in 2001 when he said "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" will be the last Jay & Bob flick? Yeah, how'd that work out exactly?